The Biggest Threats To Women's Gynecological Health: Lack Of Knowledge And Fear

By NAPS, North American Precis Syndicate

Published 1:44 am, Thursday, January 21, 2016

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The Biggest Threats To Women's Gynecological Health: Lack Of Knowledge And Fear

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(NAPSI)—More than half of women in the U.S. are unclear about GYN conditions and the surgical procedures to treat them. This is significant, as up to 80 percent of U.S. women will have fibroids by age 50, over 5 million suffer from endometriosis, and more than 500,000 hysterectomies will be performed in the U.S. this year, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“Understanding GYN conditions and their treatments is essential for women to be able to make decisions about their care,” said Dr. Paul MacKoul, M.D. “This large gap in knowledge can lead women to ignore common symptoms like pelvic pain and heavy bleeding, which aren’t normal. Fear of the unknown can also be a barrier to treatment, and as conditions worsen, the harder they can be to treat with conservative methods.”

“Many of the patients who come to see us have delayed treatment out of fear or other doctors telling them to watch and wait,” said Dr. NatalyaDanilyants, M.D. “Irreversible damage can be done to the uterus by large fibroids or extensive endometriosis. Women who want to have children and who could have retained their ability to get pregnant if they had gotten treatment sooner end up having hysterectomies in their 20s and 30s.”

As common as they are, GYN conditions are not always managed with the most up-to-date practices. Fibroids can wreak havoc. Extreme bleeding, intense pelvic pain and infertility are just some of the symptoms but many women are told to ignore them.

“For fibroids, watching and waiting is an out-of-date practice,” said Dr. Danilyants. “If larger fibroids are detected, they should be removed. Fibroids can grow very large, distorting the uterus, disrupting pregnancies and resulting in miscarriage or preterm births, putting mother and child at risk.”

Endometriosis is a condition that remains a mystery, and is misdiagnosed on average for 10 years before finally being discovered.

“As we bring more awareness to [endometriosis] we will see more diagnosis,” said Dr. Tamer Seckin, M.D. “Early diagnosis is the best prevention for endometriosis because it allows for early intervention. It is a shame that gynecologists are missing this disease regularly.”

Patient Advocacy on the Rise

In 2016, there is a push to increase fibroid and endometriosis awareness through grassroots efforts. Between searches on the Internet and social media support groups for many GYN conditions, women are getting information from all angles, some that is helpful and some that is dangerous.

CIGC created a resource for the most common GYN conditions, surgical procedures that are typically used to treat them and new advancements in minimally invasive GYN surgery at GYNSurgeryInfo.org. Women travel from around the world to experience DualPortGYN and LAAM minimally invasive fibroid removal, techniques that reduce recovery time for major procedures to an average of 10 days to two weeks.